As he spoke, a very faint sound came to our ears.
It was the high-pitched note of a powerful electric horn, as yet some distance away and between us and Strasbourg.
Mansel had the Rolls moving before I was well in my seat, and we were very soon doing some sixty odd miles to the hour, but the next time I heard the horn it sounded much closer, and, after a moment, Mansel slackened his speed and let a closed car go by. He was very careful, however, to keep this in sight, and when, two or three miles on, we saw it slow down and stop in the midst of the road, he asked me to fasten Tester to a short chain which was attached to the coachwork close to my feet.
As we approached, a man who had alighted from the car spread out his arms as a signal to us to stop, not in a peremptory manner, but rather as does a man who is in need of assistance. Mansel waved in reply and applied his brakes, but he overran the closed car by nearly a hundred yards, before bringing the Rolls to rest on the crown of the road.
Then we turned round in our seats and waited for the stranger to move.
For a while he seemed to be expecting that we should come back, but, when it was quite evident that we were not going to move, he spoke for a moment with someone within the car and then began to walk in our direction.
“Hanbury,” said Mansel quietly, “watch that car. The moment it moves, ask Chandos to give you a match.”
The stranger was wearing dark glasses, which he did not remove; his hair was fair and his complexion ruddy. He was not very tall, and his hands were coarse and rough. He walked jauntily and wore his hat on one side.
As he came up, he gave us “Good day” in French, and then very haltingly inquired if any one of us could speak English.
“We are English,” said Mansel.
“Why, that’s fine,” said the other. Then very calmly he asked us to come back and look at his car, “for,” said he, “she seems to be nearly red-hot, and none of us knows enough to change a wheel.”
“If she’s so hot,” said Mansel, “no one can help you at all for half an hour. I should open both sides of the bonnet and push her into the shade. I’ll send you help from the very next garage I pass.”
“Now be a sport,” said the stranger, laying a hand on the Rolls and casually lifting his hat. “Come an’ ’ave a look at the swine.”
“Bill,” said Hanbury to me, “give me a match.”
“Shall I send you help?” said Mansel, as the Rolls began to move.
The stranger’s answer was to try to apply the hand-brake, but, as he was feeling for the lever, I hit him under the jaw, and he fell back into the road.
Then the Rolls shot forward, and, as I was unready, I fell myself upon Mansel, who was laughing like a child at a circus, while Tester was barking uproariously and trying to burst his chain, and Hanbury was kneeling on the back seat, shouting “Gone away” and making derisive gestures with both hands.
Before I had got my balance, the closed car was out of sight, but Hanbury told us, with tears, that its occupants’ haste to alight, before it had stopped, had done as much damage as I, for that, as a man was descending from the front of the car, someone behind him flung open the second door and that this hit the one in the back and knocked him down and then returned upon the other, who was himself halfway out. So it seemed that we had had very much the best of the brush and that Ellis and his friends had gained nothing but a couple of heavy falls: but Mansel, when he had done laughing, began to frown, “because,” said he, “though I’d sooner be before than behind them, I’d very much sooner not be on their road at all. Too many ‘circumstances over which one has no control’ on the road today.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when we rounded a bend to see a level-crossing ahead. And the barriers were down.
When we were very near, Mansel stopped and Hanbury and I leaped out. At once, as there was no keeper, we endeavoured to raise the poles, but these had been lowered by machinery, controlled, I suppose, by some distant signalman, and were fast locked into place.
“Never mind,” said Mansel quietly, stepping out of the driver’s seat. “Chandos, you take my place, and, Hanbury, sit by his side.”
With that, he climbed into the back and lighted a cigarette.
We did as he said, and, the engine running, I sat with my hand on the lever and my foot on the clutch wondering what was to happen and reflecting rather dismally that we had laughed too soon.
It was a quiet place, and the sunshine was very hot. Except for the murmur of the engine, there was no sound at all.
So we sat, waiting for the train or the closed car.
Two minutes must have gone by before the latter appeared, rounding the bend like fury and raising a storm of dust.
“Don’t start till I say so,” said Mansel, and slewed himself round on the seat.
The road was none too wide, and we were full on the crown.
With my eyes on the driving mirror, I saw the car approach.
It was in the driver’s mind to thrust alongside, but, if he had done so, he could not have crossed the metals, for the gate was less wide than the road; so he brought
